Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he "contributed to a revenue increase" to the company.<p>There's absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the context or reasoning is.<p>This is one of the reasons I paid the premium and went for a Sony instead. They haven't done anything stupid like this yet, and I don't use smart features on the TV anyway, so I don't plan on updating the software either. Hopefully they face backlash over this stupidity and this doesn't go on to become a norm.<p>That would be really, really terrible.
... and that's exactly why my TV will never have an internet connection.<p>By now, it doesn't really matter which brand you use. I have analyzed Samsung, Sony, LG and Philips and ALL of them send data about your usage to NetEase in China and ALL of them have ToS that say that they might record your voice and store it for improving their AI or whatever. Plus all of them shove suggested apps in your face, so I'd say it is only a matter of time until all of them show more aggressive ads.<p>But if you fully wipe it and then keep it fully offline, most TVs have a great screen and they can be configured with "gaming mode" to work like a low-latency HDMI / DisplayPort display. And without internet, there are not ads :) and no forced (useless) updates.<p>BTW, my LG OLED is completely ad-free, defaults to using HDMI port 1 and even has GSYNC. Just connect any barebone with an NVIDIA card and you have 100% control over what you see.
Just as the 's' in 'IoT' stands for 'security', the 'f' in 'IoT' stands for 'fairness to users.'<p>Never buy a consumer product that expects an Internet connection.
One tip I've found useful - most TVs have a so-called "Hotel mode" (or a Service mode) where they can have most of their smart features disabled and can be locked to a single HDMI input (e.g. AppleTV / ShieldTV / Chromecast). That makes them into rather dumb panels that usually also disable those ads.<p>At least I know it's possible on all Sony AndroidTV models and most Samsung models (not sure about their latest Tizen).
The life time of TVs is simply on a different time scale than most smart thingies you connect to them. It's an appliance like the air conditioner or dishwasher, not a gadget you throw into the bin and replace. The intelligence of your media center should be elsewhere, in a dedicated gadget that you can easily replace and upgrade, connected via a standard, dumb interface like HDMI.<p>I own a 2012, 60" Sony Bravia and the picture quality is stil superb compared to recent models (except OLED). Its HD and not 4K, but it makes no difference, my eyesight is not getting any better and I might use it for the next 5 to 10 years probably. It's internet capabilities are laughable, pre-smart TV. Picked it up for 100 quid second hand, no doubt some idiot replaced it with a "smart" piece of junk with thinner frame, less durable LEDs, and now, good God, mandatory advertising.
In EU I think a "consumer complaint/guarantee" would work (the law, not a warranty given by the producer). As in: the product is no longer working as advertised/expected, so I want my money back.<p>For instance, when an older PlayStation (3?) in an update made it so that one could no longer run Linux (which was advertised as possible), I know of people that got to return it and get their money back after the Norwegian Consumer Council ruled against Sony.
A reminder that increasingly intrusive ads are one part of the problem. The other, and potentially bigger, part is automatic content recognition (ACR), which has been covered on HN before: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21899491" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21899491</a> and <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930</a>
I've had my Samsung TV for 3-4 years, it works just as well as well today as the first day that I bought it. I've never connected it to the internet and get streaming capabilities using 3rd party devices. Dumb TVs are much better than shit ones.
It's even worse when the ad server is down: it will completely lock-up your TV and you can't even watch it anymore. In the best case it makes it excruciatingly slow. That's why I turned off networking on my SmartTV already a year or two ago. No ads, works as a TV should.
Slightly off topic : the message displayed when visiting that page with javascript turned off is hilarious :<p>> Your browser is not Javascript enable or you have turn it off. We recommend you to activate for better security reason@SYSLOG: INTERNAL ERROR[2]<p>Oh well, if it's for better security reason, then… /s
Sometimes I wish there was a suckless for everything.<p>Gimme a boring TV with open firmware so I can flash it with Linux or better yet, no need for firmware, just a few video ports and a power switch. I'll feed it with my video signal of choice.<p>Then a phone with stock android or ability to flash Linux or whatever with hardware kill switches because you cant trust anything electronic these days.<p>Then I'll take a car with a steering wheel, two pedals and a double din opening on the dash and some HVAC topped off with a downloadable service manual right from the manufactures website please.<p>I'm tired of feeling this technology anxiety where I'm supposed to just give up my rights and dignity and capitulate to the corporate gods. Go away already.
You should absolutely never give your 'smart' television the wifi password or plug it into a cable that will give it a DHCP lease. Use the things as dumb displays driven by an xbox or PS4 or a home theater PC.<p>Yes, the xbox and PS4 home screens have 'ads' (promoted games and stuff mostly), but they're not 1/10th as annoying in my opinion. And Microsoft and Sony have a much higher likelihood of keeping the operating systems properly patched and up to date on a 5, 10 year time scale.
When I bought my LG TV a few years back it did the same. The ads were mostly for apps you can download on the LG app store (so no yoghurts or anything). But they were still annoying enough for me to look into the DNS queries the TV does and block some of them. In case it's useful for some of you, here's what I found out and ended up blocking:<p><pre><code> - vcfd1.giraffic.net, vcfd2.giraffic.net: adaptive Video acceleration (seems to be used for internet TV)
- GB.lgtvsdp.com, ngfts.lge.com: don't know what this does.
- GB.ibs.lgappstv.com: needed to download apps and updates
- snu.lge.com: used to check for software updates?
- lgtvonline.lge.com: likely for the TV recommendations feature that remembers what you watch and gives you recommendations based on it
- GB.info.lgsmartad.com: ads
- yahoo.com: no idea why the TV needs to talk to yahoo. Blocked.
- facebook.com: why!? Blocked.</code></pre>
Do they wait with showing ads, say a month or so, until after the common return policy for most stores have expired? That would be a really evil thing to do, just struck my mind.<p>Also, sounds like a case of optimization creep - "I know a way to get even more revenue, we just sign up with this $more_shady_ad_network!". Displaying more and more creepy ads, no-one decreasing ads since they don't want to be the one decreasing ad revenue.
I purchased a Samsung TV about two years ago for $1,200. It was my first 4K TV and I loved it. I made the purchase around the same time I dropped my cable subscription, I just couldn't stand the advertisements anymore.<p>The panel was thin (with almost no bezels), the picture quality was superb and I was sold on the "Smart TV" features like having built in access to Netflix, etc. For a while it was great, then I noticed the ads showing up on the bottom left of the bottom menu. Now my TV is as slow as molasses and I hate it. Picture quality is still good, but Samsung ruined it with their software. I refuse to purchase another Samsung TV which really frustrates me because I love their panels.<p>I'm currently looking to disable the internet on it and use a Fire Stick, Roku, or other. Anyone have any suggestions?
The core problem is that the companies that make these things are not being controlled by good regulation.<p>200 years ago it was probably legal for a food company to put a bit of cocaine in the food to make it more addictive. Nowadays I think you would go to jail for that.<p>Similarly, if we ever make it to the year 2220, the act of making a product that forces users to view certain content or that spies on users will be something you go to jail for, not something that gets you a promotion.<p>All the technical fixes that people are proposing (disconnect internet, pi hole, etc) are bandaid solutions and eventually the companies will bother to break those fixes. The company is a million times more powerful than any given individual and individuals are uncoordinated, so absent regulation the individuals will maximally lose the game - Black-Mirror-esque
TVs have gone completely the opposite direction of what I dreamed of.<p>On top of all these ads and snooping, there are so few TVs with a smooth, responsive UI. Seriously, even in top brands the UI chugs along at a snail's pace. And most of the time the UI design itself is terrible.<p>Who cares about 8K if the UI takes 8 seconds to load.
I don't understand destroying your brand like this. Samsung from the early 2000s to ~2015 meant quality. Is it worth the short term gains from ad revenue over long term customer loyalty?<p>I myself was a pretty loyal customer up until very recently when it came time to buy a TV and I specifically wanted one without ads ruining the experience.<p>I'm reasonably certain this will make this many peoples last Samsung TV.
Yet another example of the customer coming last. Are TV's that force ads on customers heavily discounted? If not, the manufacturers are earning extra revenue while the customer loses their privacy and gets nothing in return other than annoyance.<p>It's a good illustration of why privacy is so complicated: most people wouldn't think that in buying a TV they're compromising their privacy because they don't know about ACR and such. The manufacturers, of course, know all about it, but it's not in their interest to share the information - specifically, to do so in a way that empowers the consumer to make an educated decision at purchase time. (Or am I wrong and they do in fact explain everything "on the box"? I haven't had to buy a TV in a long time.)
And this is why I will never get a samsung TV again. When in the market for a new TV, I wanted a OLED and the salesperson kept pointing me towards samsung and its offerings saying they are superior to everyone else. As I had come from a Samsung and started to get ads popping up that I could not disable I realized this was a brand I needed to avoid like the plague. I ended up with a LG and have been enjoying the TV with no pop ups.<p>As a side note, they do not make a "dumb" TV anymore. I feel like this is a huge market opportunity for a manufacturer to make one as I and many others would be very interested in one. I don't want google play or any tracking crapware on my TV and can gate these things with either apple TV or Roku/media server.
Exactly this happened to me. We bought the TV and for years things were great. Really loved the functionality of the smart TV. Being able to stream YouTube at a moments notice was great.<p>But then the adverts started. We paid $3000 for this TV. Not a low end “ad-supported tv” The only way to “opt out” is to disable the “smart” TV function which I have done. Any smarts now comes from my Apple TV which does not thrust averts in my face. Needless to say, my last Samsung purchase ever.
You can disable ads but the checkbox is deeply buried in the support menu page. Also the preference is reset every time Samsung update the T&C (more or less once a month). I added 6 Samsung domains to my Pi-Hole blacklist [1], domains that are queried dozens of times a day.<p>[1] <a href="https://gist.github.com/zaerl/e3c24a9c21e5c15138e92a43ccd534da" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/zaerl/e3c24a9c21e5c15138e92a43ccd534...</a>
The problem I see with these companies, where HW is the focus and not SW, is that their tech stack is a joke. I have no faith in their security models, or their ability to protect my privacy. These features always feel like they have been just added on with little thought of the surrounding environment. Anyone who has developed a Tizen, LG webOS, Visio app, will understand what I am mean. The platforms have significant variations between model years, and developers are flat out told that features will not be fixed on 2-3 year old TVs. This seems insane considering the level of trust they ask from their customer.<p>Buyer BEWARE!
I have recently bought my first ever TV. A samsung The Serif 2019. Last years model because cheap. Amazing picture. Nice design. Absolutely shitty software<p>- This thing has an anti virus scanner installed<p>- There is a task manager that shows you the current cpu and memory consumption<p>- Disabling automatic brightness adaption requires you to enter the debug menu which you can only enter via a normal remote and not the included smart remote (which costs 50 to replace and does not have any number keys!). So I had to buy one off amazon. If you don’t do that you _will_ notice annoying brightness changes.<p>- Oh and also disable everything with auto or smart in the picture settings<p>I bought an AppleTV even before the Samsung arrived. Worth it.<p>And friends don’t let friends connect their TVs to WiFi<p>Pro tip: if your work uses TVs in meeting rooms and the font looks weird, adjust the sharpness.<p>After I found that out everything in previous meeting rooms made sense. When you unbox a normal TV for computer use you gotta turn down the sharpness and nobody does
For those who use piHole or other network wide ad blocking, I've compiled a list of servers to block: <a href="https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers" rel="nofollow">https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers</a>
This is also why I refuse to use any Samsung product if I can avoid it. I was an early adopter of 4K and their tvs at the time were very expensive. Those tvs ended up getting ads patched in - and even if you "opted out" of the yahoo agreement they still found ways to advertise by using the system notifications to push gamespot. Of course Samsung denied it which was the final straw for me. Plus all of their fridges have a known issue they refuse to fix (there's a class action lawsuit over it).<p>It's kinda sad that people are just now noticing how bad the ads are. They were bad back 6+ years ago - especially when they tried to sneak ads into videos played back from plex.
I’ll hazard that this class of decision is entirely because enterprise success is determined by movement of the share price which requires continuous growth. It’s not enough to have a wildly successful product and a wildly successful company but constant growth is required to be seen as a success.<p>That’s the only way I see a golden goose killing ux change making into one of the industry leading products in a cut throat ever changing sector.<p>I’ll now browse the comments to see if any other plausible explanations have been presented.
I bought one of these TV's without realizing it would serve ads. It was a high end model that cost enough that I had no reasonable expectation that Samsung would try to make an additional 10 bucks off of me by showing me ads, but here we are.<p>The good news is you can block the ads. Here are some domains I've blocked in my router. They might not all be necessary to block, but they don't seem to break anything else (except perhaps Disney+) and they do stop the ads from appearing.<p>(Note: The only ad I was seeing was an additional ad box that was inserted as one of the sources on the source selector. It was only an issue if you were going from display to the TV's settings because it had inserted itself in between the two, and you could accidentally click on it. Blocking the following domains got rid of This.)<p>samsungads.com<p>ads.samsung.com<p>www.samsungotn.net<p>www.samsungrm.net<p>gpm.samsungqbe.com<p>samsungacr.com<p>samsungcloudsolution.com<p>samsungcloudsolution.net<p>samsungotn.net<p>The bad news is that the Disney+ app may not function properly if you block these domains. The obvious workaround is to use Disney+ from a browser, but that produces surprising results with this TV. Certain video sources, such as Disney+ or the trailers on IMDB, cause my Samsung TV to flash the following message:<p>"We are adjusting the picture quality for you to experience a better uhd screen. You can change the settings in Settings > General > External Device Manager > HDMI UHD color"<p>The screen then goes black and the only way to restore function is to unplug the HDMI cable and plug it back in. Very annoying.<p>The message describes settings that exist in the TV's configuration exactly as described, so it's definitely an error message produced by the TV set. Unfortunately, the settings referenced do nothing to eliminate this bug.<p>I've contacted Samsung's tech support a couple of times and they're utterly clueless about this issue. (Note: Not many people may report this error message because if flashes so fast that you need to photograph the screen in order to read it, and you have to have fast reflexes to do even that!)<p>All in all, despite the quality of the screen, these unresolved issues mean I will probably not buy another Samsung TV and recommend that others avoid this brand as well.
I recently purchased a Samsung Smart TV. I pretty much just plugged in our 4k Fire Stick TV and we use that, bypassing all of the built in stuff which was a bit confusing to navigate and had significant lag between button press and UI reaction.
Who could have predicted that putting an android OS and an internet connection in a device that should only function as a display would have negative consequences?<p>At this point, is it even possible to buy a high quality tv that <i>isn't</i> a smart tv? And will these smart TVs work properly if you keep them disconnected from the internet?<p>(Side note: this is why TVs are so much cheaper now, isn't it?)
There are huge communities of awesome hackers who support build and support operating systems and firmware for phones and routers. Does anything like that exist for so-called "smart" TVs?
I know folks will totally TRASH apple if they did a walled garden TV - but for some of us we'd probably pay the extra just not to have to deal with / worry about the random scammers doing things like this. And I call this a scam when you spend this amount of money and the box doesn't have in bold letters (popover ads!).
Bought a new Samsung TV. Connect ethernet cable. Update firmware. Disconnect ethernet cable. Connect Apple TV.<p>The end.<p>Smart TVs can go to hell. Arguably updating the firmware wasn't even worth doing but whatever.
What happened to just buying a "normal" TV? No internet needed or anything?<p>Seems dumb. Seeing this link has already made me to decide I actually won't buy a Samsung tv. I'll just get something else.<p>If we truly go the road of the dodo, I'll just make a side business rewiring "smart" tvs.
I built my own router with a raspberry pi. I installed pi-hole and use that as a dns resolver. I then use an iptables rule to NAT / forward all dns traffic on port 53 to the pi-hole resolver, similar to how ISPs often intercept dns requests. This prevents IOT devices from bypassing the dns server configured via my DHCP. Letting pi-hole block the requests helps prevent errors from dns request timeouts.<p>An additional benefit is that you get to log internet traffic and get shocked as you find out what your devices are really up to.<p>To block ads that are served over whitelisted / not blocked domains I’d need some kind of deep packet inspection. I’m not sure this kind of filtering even exists / would work as a lot of the ad traffic I see is served over https.
Simple slution: don't buy "Smart" TVs, And the day all TVs will be "Smart" just don't connect them to the Internet (and don't leave open hotspots nearby or they'll do by themselves).
They're becoming business platforms rather than devices the user can control, just like "Smart" phones and computers with non free operating systems.<p>Anyone remembers that TV screen in the wonderful Idiocracy docu... er.. movie?
That is going to happen, soon or later.<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/scifiinterfaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/IDIOCRACY-TV.png" rel="nofollow">https://i2.wp.com/scifiinterfaces.com/wp-content/uploads/201...</a>
There used to be open source firmware for Samsung TVs called SamyGo, it would be great if it were ported to newer ones so the ads could be replaced with Kodi or similar.<p><a href="https://www.samygo.tv/" rel="nofollow">https://www.samygo.tv/</a>
As much as Apple can be annoying for developers, at least they have been pro consumer in certain areas:<p>-AppleTV will not do this, and likely never will
-iPhones do not have ads all over them put in place by the carriers (I still can’t believe this happened)
Our Samsung TV in our living room has been unplugged for about three months. I wanted to give it to charity and have new “plant friendly” shelves installed instead of the TV nook, still need to talk my wife into that.<p>Before the great unplugging, I set the Internet connection on the TV to be to my iPhone. I almost never have my iPhone hotspot turned on, so I could do TV updates when needed, otherwise starve it for an Internet connection.<p>BTW, no TV works for us because we stream to my wife’s large iPad Pro and she bought a fancy stand that can position the iPad anywhere in space. We site next to each other and place the iPad just under three feet away. We like this setup.
One way to handle this is to get a privacy-oriented DNS service like NextDNS[1] which can block ads and trackers. Then put that in your TV's networks settings. My Samsung smart TV tries to send out a lot of these requests back to the mothership: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/wCMrI3B.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/wCMrI3B.png</a> but the service blocks them.<p>[1]NextDNS <a href="https://nextdns.io/?from=rj4b2nfn" rel="nofollow">https://nextdns.io/?from=rj4b2nfn</a>
Side note. I own a fairly recent Samsung TV. I pay for Google Priemium so I can let my kid watch some shows from time to time. Pepa pig and what not.<p>The issue is the built in youtube app constantly had to be logged out and back in. Otherwise advertisements start to show. Sometimes as often as wcey 4 minutes. And they are the worst sorts of advertisements geared to kids to ask parents to buy pointless plastic shit.<p>I am failey sure this <i>bug</i> is not being fixed because it would lower somebodiws revenue, or metric.
Common reaction for this is that Samsung made a stupid decision and they are losing money because of this. Supporting evidence is anecdotal, personal experience.<p>I seriously doubt this is true. It's probably rational behaviour for Samsung to push this trend as far as it goes and then retreat a little if negative reaction shows in the bottom line. Or maybe limit the offending products to lower price category.
I am looking for a small non-smart TV for a workout area in my home. My last TV purchase was around 2010.<p>The options seem very limited. I may end up using a computer monitor with a streaming box and or a tv tumer card on an old computer. I already have a good OTA signal from an outdoor antenna that is used by the main TV in the house and can easily run a splitter.<p>Any low cost recommendations?
At my work, I'm responsible for the procurement of IT equipment, and for our boardrooms, we only buy "digital signage" televisions. Essentially, dumb TVs because we don't want any of our data to leave our building.
<a href="https://na.panasonic.com/us/audio-video-solutions/professional-displays/" rel="nofollow">https://na.panasonic.com/us/audio-video-solutions/profession...</a><p>It's pricier, e.g. 55" 4k is $3000 CAD, but worth the privacy. We actually got some large ones at a discount because they were all 1080p, and for meeting rooms, nobody needs Powerpoint or Word in 4K, so it was perfect. Just a thought if anyone is looking for good quality TV sets. I also think the limited warranty starts at 3 years.
I won't be buying a Samsung TV again. I have tried so hard to disable any autoplaying TV channels/adverts when you turn the TV on as they have been inappropriate for my kids. I went as far as pin locking every single channel. But give it a few weeks and it'll start auto playing content when you turn it on.
I couldn’t even tell you what brand my dumb 4k TV is, but i have it hooked up to my old Mac with a wireless keyboard and I’m very happy. I do not understand the appeal of a television who also controls content. Maybe I’m old school but this article confirmed my gut reaction to the concept
Expect more of this as users hold onto their devices for longer and services become increasingly important as a source of recurring revenue. Apple is uniquely positioned to weather this transition. The best way I can see forward for Samsung here is profit sharing with Google and Microsoft.
I've wondered for a bit now: Why isn't jailbreaking TV's a bigger thing? I know there are a few projects, but it isn't nearly as widespread as XBMC was back in the day, for example.<p>Then again, I don't have a TV for the exact reason listed in this article, I use a big monitor.
Internet of things is a huge antipattern.<p>I don’t remember where I read this, but a United Labs for information security is overdue.<p>It won’t directly help with ad injection, but I think the security implications will put a damper on some of this (the cost of maintaining their firmware which Samsung barely does).
This is why I will never buy another Samsung. The stupid TV keeps pushing Facebook and CBS apps in the "most recently used" apps; mind you I've NEVER used either. I delete them from the list and within a day they are back. Samsung = screw the user.
Don't buy a TV, buy a screen and connect it to your own media source. Preferably offline media. You can be a lot more deliberate about the content you consume and there won't be tracking (though there might still be ads in the media).
Can someone with 1st hand experience reassure me I would be able to use a commercial digital signage as a TV??<p>From what I learned so far the difficulties are:
[please also correct me on these]<p>- stand is not included (need to buy that separately / do a wall mount)<p>- hard to find a seller<p>- prices are higher than for equivalent consumer TVs<p>- brightness is higher -> more power consumption<p>- there is no antenna (terrestial DVB-T/T2, satellite input) so you have to drive content from USB or PC / Raspberry / xxxCast dongle<p>The benefit is that you get a "dumb" panel with no spying, ads, software taking snapshots of what you watch. The TV is then also designed to last more hours - commercial panels are on 20h/day.
None of our monitors are connected to the Internet. We use them as dumb hdmi displays and that's it, for this and a lot of other reasons. On a side note, I'm just generally growing very dissatisfied with Samsung's business practices, and we've been pretty good customers of theirs. We have a Samsung fridge, and Samsung washer/dryer combo (all three of which are excellent products tbh). I'm on my fourth or fifth Samsung phone, but after several years of them trying to shove Bixby down my gullet along with a bunch of other stuff I don't want I think it will be my last.
i declined any agreement i could on a Samsung TV and it does not show those large banner ads to me but sometimes it shows some smaller ad near the source selection area. It looks like if you are paying enough you still get a spot there.<p>Whats more it constantly installs some partner apps and puts them for quick start into the menu sometimes removing the applications i actually use from there in the process. I prefer using these apps for Netflix and co but every time i plugged it into the ether i feel like i should not and a fear of it getting even worse somehow.
Maximizing profit is all about stretching people's tolerances up to the breaking point, making everything miserable for everyone except the few knucklehead's raking in the extra profits.
I have a 7 series TV and it came with some arguably bloatware apps but I could remove them (from the menu, not uninstall them, which leaves me with not even a few mb to install Spotify). The one thing I can't get rid of is a stupid program guide I have to go over when going from sources to settings. That's it so far. I'm in Europe and disagreed with any data collection they asked about.<p>Does it now even still do the ACR? Are they going to retroactively install me ads? Are there specific domain names one should block? Alternative firmwares?
I've only ever bought one Samsung product. It's a smart TV presumably meant to be used for Steam Link purposes. When it arrived and I turned it on, I found out that not only the Steam Link app was not available for my model, but it also had no Bluetooth support for controllers (only for audio devices???). I double checked the product page and it very clearly shows, to this date, steam Link and controller support. Obviously their customer support team didn't care.
Almost all Smart TVs have this type of ad in the home screen but the obtrusiveness varies. For my Roku Tv, it is a small banner on the left side that you can ignore easily and isn’t a huge deal. I bet it contributes very little revenue.<p>For all of them, their main money maker is ads on free video content. Most of them have a channel/section filled with free tv shows/movies (usuaully b level content) and they make the majority of their revenue showing ads on this content.
I switched over my router the other day and while I was debugging some minor issues I briefly had internet without Pi-Hole.<p>I was stunned by the prominence and intrusiveness by the ads on my Roku, even with already knowing it calls home several times a minute.<p>Once everything was back up and running things were back to normal. My setup is a dumb Spectre with a great screen with a Roku connected for Netflix and Plex/Jellyfin. Combined with a pi-hole it makes for a pretty clean experience.
Like probably most folks here, I block ads at the pihole, and rarely ever see them. I actually pay for YouTube so that they don't show my kids any ads when they're not on my network.<p>I don't think I'm buying things based on ads, at all, but the adtech guys would surely disagree. I also find it hard to square the near universal loathing of ads with the draw of Times Square. I too enjoyed the lights of the ads.
I've found that I prefer LG products over Samsung. I've had a number of LG phones and monitors that get down to business without too many bells, whistles, and other extras of questionable value. Samsung phones tend to be more 'customized'. I don't have specific/recent experience with either brands' TVs but seems to be in line with expectations.
Can those "smart" TV do ACR on content provided via HDMI? i.e. if I connect my apple TV to my intrusive smart TV, does it do ACR on the signal it receives via HDMI?<p>At home I don't have a smart TV (I use a JVC video projector and they've resisted adding those kind of useless feature so far) but my parents use a smart TV connected to an apple TV and so I'm curious what happens there.
I don't mind ads so much on my tv (it's a tv after all) as the notion that they will substantively change the quality and behavior of a device after point of sale with no means to revert or refund the purchase.<p>At least when I subscribe to a SaaS and they roll out changes I dislike, I can choose to stop paying them and move to a competitor.<p>Non security updates should always be opt-in.
When I wrote about phones "Mass market is demanding products nonsensically thin to the detriment of other properties, because it was told to. It could be told otherwise." I got laughed off. That the market isn't going to serve my fancy preferences.<p>But this is the same thing, the market is repeatedly told to ask for smart devices, even when dumb TV is all the users need.
First off, I hate ads, and I think hardware shouldn't have ads in it.<p>But on the other hand, the argument "I paid all this money and I still get ads" is honestly something I've been hearing about cable companies for decades. In the end, if something can make money (as in, people will pay) that's sadly the way it will go.
You just wait a few year for ATSC 3.0(<a href="https://www.atsc.org/nextgen-tv/" rel="nofollow">https://www.atsc.org/nextgen-tv/</a>) to get adopted and then you will see way more ads. The content you will see on the TV will be rendered like a webpage. Enter more data collection and more ads. Enjoy. :)
I "solved" this problem by having an Amazon Fire stick plugged in all the time and selecting it as the default input. Samsung's own menu shows in the tray at the bottom and Fire Stick's menu fills the rest of the screen. It's also super convenient because the selection of apps on Samsung's store is very limited.
I'm glad my TV isn't smart enough to display ads. Should I ever decide to buy a new TV (my current one is an old 32"), it should be as dumb as possible. Smart enough to react to a WOL packet, be remote-controllable via TCP and be happy to live blocked behind a firewall.<p>I leave the intelligence to other devices which I connect to the TV.
I have a Samsung TV and the best decision I made was buying the Apple TV; right now I don’t care about the applications it has, the fact that Netflix has been removed for my model as it’s already 4 years old, etc.
My next TV will be as dumb as possible as Smart-TVs are a pain in the ass and never as intelligent as an Apple TV or similar.
Samsung is forever on my Shit list. They inject ads into their computers, tablets, smartphones, and TVs.<p>I'm happy with my LG TV, which the only "ads" they have are:<p>- Highlighting new "TV Channels" which is ... acceptable. I don't know why anyone would want/care about the Hyundai TV channel<p>- installing Disney+ automatically
If I'm reasonably happy with Chromecast (not interested in litigating who spies on me most here), is there some setup I can achieve with just a large PC monitor and some HDMI jiggery pokery to hook up a sound system? I hate the thought of paying for all this gunk I never use, I really just need the panel.
New Sony Xperia 10 ii phone came for us with ads in the notification area, stemming from some pre-installed news app. Not to mention Spotify, Facebook, etc being preinstalled. Easy fux but really disappointing, next phone will be Fairphone or Swift phone so I don't support these big corps anymore.
That's why I opt for "non smart" TV's and then connect them with either a PS3/ PS4 to make them smart my own way. I get all the goodness of netflix and am not bothered by ads. Not to mention pihole is also configured as a local ad blocker in my network to keep those pesky ads out.
I wonder how many people who buy TVs read reviews on them beforehand. I always do, and I wouldn’t consider any device that came with this garbage.<p>I have a feeling this will last about as long as it takes for consumers to get a sense for what models come with ads. No one wants this on a device they already paid for.
My Samsung phone has been doing stuff like this lately too accidentally hit the bixby button all the sudden you're in and dated with Samsung store apps asking you to rate them like use the calculator that's built in "please rate this on the Samsung store"
I've never bought a "smart" TV, and i never will.<p>It's not smart to buy "smart" appliances, since any intelligence they have will work towards the interests of the companies that made them, not the purchasor.
when i was looking to buy an oled tv, i never even considered samsung because of this problem. I went with lg c9. ads are there but very very minimal compared to samsung tvs.<p>you'll be thrilled how much data these "smart" tvs collect when you plug it to your local DNS server.
I can't even remember when was the last time I've used the actual TV. Whatever TV's I have all act as a monitors hooked up to computers and I do not let those "smart" things connect to the network at all.
This is why I've bought a TV with no internet access, when I want to watch something I just plug a Chromebook or whatever laptop I have via HDMI and watch whatever I want without no ads (thank you so much uBlock Origin devs).
Wow, and it seems it's built into flows like changing input.<p>I happen to only use my tv as a single input HDMI display, using my Roku for everything. I suppose they could still force ads in that situation, but I assume they haven't yet.
20 years ago I predicted that advertisers would get a lot passed that made your front door a billboard owned by the city so they could put all the ads they wanted on your front door. I was just a few years too early!
Ideally it should be better to hook up your own smart device to smart TVs because the smarts are always evolving, and TVs are generally behind anyways.<p>Building apps into a TV is a really nice idea, but there has to be a better way.
As the article points out, Google is doing similar with Android TV. I'm not happy. I bought a Shield TV for a higher-end experience. I don't want ads on my home screen. I know, ToS, etc.. Bah! No excuse!
This is the Best opportunity to gather support to push Apple to make a proper TV set. One that value privacy, and something I have been advocating for years. ( And hopefully a return of Airport Express as well )
With small HDMI capable media boxes (e.g. rpi, chromecast) becoming increasingly available, it's time for TVs to die and dumb monitors to take their place. Like PC monitors, but not designed for the desk.
Find IP address is connecting to for the ad server, and block it at the router? Its a sad fucking world when I have to suggest this - I flat out wouldn't buy a tv with adware but yeah should work.
I setup a pi-hole on a pi4 a few months ago, then made my router announce it as the primary DNS server for my house. So far, my samsung TV and peloton bike are the most blocked clients in the house.
My friend's Samsung TV has Bluetooth permanently enabled, so every time a neighbour turns on a Bluetooth device, the TV asks if she'd like to connect to it. I'll never buy a Samsung device.
I didn't see this mentioned, and some of the posts imply that there are not smart TVs without ads, but my TCL TV running Roku TV bought last year and connected to the Internet does not have any ads.
I bought a 4K Samsung The Frame. When i turned it on it requested that I agree to several agreements and it wanted me to connect it to the internet.<p>I declined everything and hooked it up to my Apple TV. Super happy.
I wish that it’s just a step in the master plan to market plain old dumb TVs. Too bad it won’t really happen, the best outcome would be a few more pi-holes or similar devices installed.
One of the reasons I avoided as hard as I could getting a "SmartTV" and went for a standard LED display. Those are getting harder and harder to come by though.
I've got a Samsung TV in a network with PiHole and the strictest blacklist rules. And I watch YouTube over Kodi. I've never seen a single ad on my smart TV.
Do you guys connect your TVs to internet? I know my TV has WiFi and Eth port, but I never thought about connecting it online, it's as useless as Euro Scart.
Couldn't you just buy the TV but not let it connect to your WiFi? Then just use Chromecast/Roku/AppleTV/etc. to get internet to your TV.
Whats next? LineageOS for TVs? PineTV? There is a pattern emerging if its not clear by now - open software on open hardware is the only long term solution.
Was this straightforwardly disclosed to people before they bought these TVs? If not, a regulatory punishment and/or class action suit is in order.
This is exactly the reason why I keep my smart tv dumb. Never connected it to the internet, all playback is being done with a chromecast or mediaplayer.
This is why I continue to use a Chromecast rather than using the native smart tv functionality.<p>Ill let my TV be a dumb TV that I can simply send a signal to.
I walk into a department store or electronic shop, will I see these adverts demoed on the menus there?<p>It would only be fair to let people know what to expect!
Definitely don't buy smart TVs. Is it still possible to buy a dumb TV these days? Who cares, Don't buy a smart TV. TV isn't all that great anyhow, it's mostly a bunch moralizing hidden behind a plot and some sarcasm. Leave it behind.
We can kill advertising.<p>It may not work for the smart tv case, but I imagine a device or filter program that I can plug in that detects ads with a neutral network. It wouldn't turn off the ads, but instead transform them into unpleasant imagery that creates incredibly negative brand images. It would be designed to permanently subconsciously tarnish a brand.<p>McDonald's human trafficking<p>Nike genocide<p>Spouse-beating Walmart<p>Coca-cola rotten corpse<p>I want to deploy this widely to destroy advertising. If ads got detected and replaced with images designed to embed and evoke negative reactions, advertisers would stop.<p>We need something this drastic to fight back.
Samsung has crappy products? I'm shocked /s<p>Samsung is cut from the same cloth as Apple. Huge advertising budgets to get the sale. Abuse of customers after purchase.
"I bought an internet-enabled ad delivery platform and put it in my living room. Why is it showing me advertising?!"<p>Of course, it's showing you advertising, that's what the internet is for according to the advertising scum of the world.<p>Maybe don't buy a 'smart' TV next time?
Obviously you can buy "commercial signage" displays which are panels without the crapware.<p>Anyone have recommendations for units they've bought this way? I've avoided upgrading my super old LCD because at least my current one is somewhat stupid and so long as I don't connect it to the network it mostly does what I bought it for: display the pixels.